What caused the 2008 economic crisis? In an article published earlier this year, political economist Sam Gindin explained it “primarily as a financial crisis.” Writing for New Left Project, Andrew Kliman rejected this analysis, arguing that, had the crisis really been mainly financial, the economy would have recovered by now. Here, Gindin responds to Kliman’s critique.

As David Harvey has noted, and as the ongoing emerging market panic confirms, capitalism never solves its crises — it merely moves them around geographically.

You may not have read about it in the regular media yet, but the financial press is full of it: financial markets are currently experiencing a “bloodbath” over the deepening turmoil in the global periphery.

Journalist, author, activist and historian Harvey Wasserman has been reporting on, and participating in, the nuclear free movement for decades. In that time, by his judgment, only one other event matches the danger to the world posed by the Cuban Missile Crisis. That event is the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Continue reading this...

Global Power Project: Exposing the Institute of International Finance, Part 1

This is the first of a series of exposés focusing on the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the very “visible hand” of financial markets. It is a continuation of the Global Power Project produced by Occupy.com. Part 1 examines the origins of the IIF.

A well-respected research group posted a short article on its website about the location of a second launchpad for Iran’s space program. That’s not big news–but it can be made to sound like scary news in the New York Times.

“Launching Site in Iran Raises Missile Worries” was the headline over a piece by Rick Gladstone (8/9/13), which had this curious lead:

John Bellamy Foster: We need a society that is geared, as István Mészáros always tells us, to substantive equality. And no compromise on the issue of equality. Bolívar said equality is the law of laws. So we need substantive equality and we need ecological sustainability. And they have to go together. How do we know they have to go together? Because what is causing the ecological damage and what is causing the social damage is the same thing: it’s the rift in the production system; it’s the alienation of nature, which is one with the alienation of human society. Continue reading this...

This week in Black Agenda Report

Gandhi once said that western civilization would be “a good idea.” So would black journalism. One white TV talking head said he was ready to arrest Glen Greenwald. Not to be outdone, MSNBC’s black talking heads too, are ready to personally scalp Wikileaks and put the cuffs on Edward Snowden. Public opinion, which favored Snowden early, has to be pushed in the administration’s direction. A dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it. Continue reading this...

CAIRO—Egypt’s military gave Mohammed Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum to “resolve the crisis” before the military intervenes, setting the stage for a possible military coup a day after millions thronged Egypt’s streets demanding the president’s resignation.

This week in Black Agenda Report

The U.S. reprises Iraq, inventing a WMD threat from Syria. The FBI concocts home-grown terror through stings, while the NSA claims it has secretly saved many lives. “Why this steady stream of government-invented terror, if the real thing is so abundant?” And, isn’t the U.S. arming and funding the same jihadists they are supposed to be listening for on our telephones? Continue reading this...

[I can’t say I entirely agree with this essay’s approach to dealing with the crisis of capitalism (after all, it’s not the first crisis but the umpteenth) but nevertheless I still think it’s worth reading if only because it’s a refreshing change after the British left’s attempt at addressing the crisis (see for example Richard Seymour’s video, ‘In practical terms today, we are all reformists …’) Though I would argue that the British left has always been reformist, well at least William Morris’s time, and in any case, he speaks not for me. WB]